THE EXPERT WITNESS AND PROPRIETARY MEDICINES. The "Great Nerve Specialist"--The Professional Witness a Jonah--The "Railway Spine"--Is it Lack of Fairness and Honesty or Lack of Skill and Learning?--Destruction of Fine Herds of Cattle Without Compensation--Koch's Dictum and Denial--Koch's Tuberculin--The Serum Tribe--Stupendous Sale of Nostrums--Druggist's Arguments--Use of Proprietary Medicines Stimulates Sale of Nostrums. I wonder what the patrons of the sanitarium of the "great nerve specialist" thought of his display of knowledge of the nervous system when he was on the witness stand in a recent notorious case? A lawyer tangled him up completely, and showed that the doctor had no accurate knowledge of the anatomy of the nervous system. When asked the origin of the all-important pneumogastric nerve, he _thought_ it originated in a certain segment of the spinal cord! This noted "specialist" was made perfectly contemptible, and the whole profession must have blushed in shame at the spectacle presented. And that spectacle was not unnoticed by the intelligent laity. The professional witness has in most cases been a Jonah to the profession. It is about as easy to get the kind of testimony you want from a professional witness in a suit for damages for personal injuries as it is to get a doctor's certificate to get out of working your poll-tax, or a certificate of physical soundness to carry fraternal life insurance. Let me recall the substance of a paper read a few years ago by perhaps the greatest lawyer in Iowa (afterward governor of that State). He told of a trial in which he had examined and cross-examined ten physicians. It was a trial in which suit was brought to recover damages for personal injury, a good illustration of the "railway spine." One physician testified that the patient was afflicted with sclerosis of the spinal cord; another said it was a plain case of congestion of the cord; another diagnosed degeneration of the cord; yet another said it was a true combination of all the conditions named by the first three. They all said there was atrophy of the muscles of the left leg, and predicted that complete paralysis would surely supervene. On the other side five noted physicians testified as positively that neither the spinal cord nor any nerve was injured; that there was no sign of atrophy or loss of power in the leg; and they seemed to think the disease afflicting the patient was due to a fixed desire to secure a verdict for large damages from the railway company. One eminent specialist made oath that the electrical test showed the partial reaction of degeneration; another as famous challenged him to make the test again in the presence of both. After it was made this second specialist went before the jury and positively declared that there was no trace whatever of the reaction of degeneration, and that the muscles responded to the current precisely as healthy muscles should.